AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 10504 - Legal Tussle Over Mandatory-Voluntary Nature of Aadhaar Kicks Off Next Week

In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.

On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.

In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.

In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.

In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.

"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi

Ram Krishnaswamy

Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

10504 - Legal Tussle Over Mandatory-Voluntary Nature of Aadhaar Kicks Off Next Week - The Wire

Legal Tussle Over Mandatory-Voluntary Nature of Aadhaar Kicks Off Next Week

BY ANUJ SRIVAS ON 27/09/2016 • 1 COMMENT

On October 7, the Supreme Court will begin to hear long-pending petitions that deal with a number of issues surrounding the biometric authentication system.

The petitions deal with the legality of mass collection of citizen data, potential privacy violations and whether or not Aadhaar enrolment could be made mandatory. Credit: Reuters

New Delhi: Nearly one year after the Supreme Court declared that Aadhaar enrolment would be “purely voluntary”, the stage is set again for a set of court hearings that will make or break the Modi government’s aim of making Aadhaar integration mainstream.

On October 7, the Supreme Court will hear the first of a group of contempt and other long-pending petitions that deal with a number of issues surrounding the biometric authentication system.

These petitions – filed by prominent members of civil society such as Aruna Roy, Bezwada Wilson and Justice (Retd) Puttassamy, and represented legally by senior advocates such as Soli Sorabjee, Shyam Divan and Gopal Subramanium – deal with the legality of mass collection of citizen data, potential privacy violations and finally whether or not Aadhaar enrolment could be made mandatory.

The first contempt petition to be heard was filed by Colonel (retd) Mathew Thomas through advocate Aishwarya Bhati; the senior advocate for the petition is former solicitor general Gopal Subramanium.

“Ours is a plain legal contempt petition against heads of [two] government bodies and institutions. The first is the Indian Oil Corporation which has issued circulars for Aadhaar seeding in the case of LPG subsidies and the other is the University Grants Commission which has tried to make Aadhaar mandatory for scholarships,” said Prasanna S., a lawyer who is part of Bhati’s legal team.

In early 2014, the Indian Oil Corporation made Aadhaar enrolment mandatory in a de facto manner; officials pointed out to reporters at the time while there were no public statements that declared Aadhaar was mandatory to receive subsidies, there were also “no other methods to receive or avail of the LPG subsidy”. The University Grants Commission has also similarly flip-flopped over the issue of Aadhaar in the last few months.

“Our petition was actually listed for the Friday before last, but was deleted and taken off the list without us receiving an official reason. It is now listed for a hearing next Friday although it could get preponed to next Monday,” Prasanna said.

Need for contempt

Contempt petitions like this are aimed at creating deterrence, according to legal experts. Why is there a need for deterrence though?

Over the last year, since the Supreme Court’s interim order, there has been much confusion over to what extent the Aadhaar card system can be applied in government programmes. In late 2015 the Supreme Court clearly stated that Aadhaar enrolment had to remain voluntary until the “court decided one way or the other”. A few weeks ago, however, the government notified the Aadhaar Act, which according to Attorney General Mukul Rohatagi deals with the Supreme Court’s concerns and paves the way for mandatory usage.

A Supreme Court order last week last week that restricted the mandatory usage of Aadhaar when it comes to disbursal of student scholarships appears to reaffirm its earlier order and raise doubts over whether the efficacy of the Aadhaar Act.

More importantly, other issues such as privacy and the legality of widespread data collection have yet to be addressed by the Supreme Court. In August 2015, Rohatagi raised doubts over the “existence of a fundamental right to privacy” during hearings on the Aadhaar system and ultimately it was decided that these issues would be decided by a larger bench.

The upcoming hearings, according to legal experts and government officials The Wire spoke with, will decide the future of the Aadhaar identification system in India. A partial list of the petitions pending before the Supreme Court are listed below:

Petition	Petitioner(s)	Senior Advocate(s)
WP (c) 494/2012	Justice (Retd) Puttassamy	Anil Divan and Soli Sorabjee
WP (C) 829/2012	SG Vombatkere & Bezwada Wilson	Shyam Divan
W.P.(C) 833/2013	Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey	Nithya Ramakrishnan
W.P. (C) 932/2013	Nagrik Chetna Manch	Anup Bhambhani
T.C.(C) 152/2013	Vikram Crishna	Meenakshi Arora
T.C.(C) 151/2013	S. Raju
W.P.(C) 37/2015	Mathew Thomas	Gopal Subramanium

Another crucial petition about the Aadhaar Act specifically has been filed by Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh, which questions the act’s money bill route is also expected to be heard in the coming month.